Monday, January 22, 2007

In my previous article, I listed all the tools, material and parts used to build my pair of speakers.

Cutting - I used the dimension from here to cut my MDF sheets to size. When working with MDF, I highly recommend wearing a dust mask and goggle. MDF is very dusty.

Panels - When I bought my 4'x8' MDF sheets at the hardware store, I asked them to cut it in half (4' x 4'). Two reasons, it's easy to drive them home and to cut on my tablesaw. I used the tablesaw to cut the panels to dimension.

Speaker and port holes - Use the router with the Jasper jig to cut all those circles. Cut the recess first, then cut through on the inner diameter. When cutting the recess, make sure you account for the thickness of your veneer. I made that mistake. I did not do that, so my speaker drivers sit a bit deeper than desire. I also use the Jasper jig to cut the holes for the bracing piece. Note: If I'm to build another pair, I would veneer the front panel first before I cut the speaker circles. You should get a better look and fit. Trimming veneer from the recess part is difficult.

Putting the front and side part together - Glue everything except for the rear panel to allow access for installing the crossover and damping materials. I used drywall screw in addition to glue. In hindsight, I don't think the screws were necessary. The wood glue provides a very strong bond.After the glue dries, use the orbital sander with varying grits to sand excess glue and any imperfections in your cuts. In some area, I had hairline gaps, I used wood fillers to fill these gaps.

Port and Binding posts - I added a 100mm x 100mm bracing for the port and glue it to the inside of the cabinet as mentioned here. Before gluing the port, I decided to paint the inside of my PVC pipe black (a glossy black aerosol spray paint can). At this point, I decided to apply the Maple veneer, glue in the Ports (PVC pipes) and the binding posts to the rear panels. Add the damping material (felt and poly-fill)

Add Damping materials - Add the roof felt to all the internal surfaces except for the front. I used spray adhesive and stapler. Then glue the poly-fill on top of the roof felt. I used spray adhesive. Also, this is when I install my crossover module. I'll cover on building the crossover module in the next article.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Here is a strategy/walkthrough that'll get to level 28 with "Interest" only upgrades. After level 28, you can pick your desire "element" upgrade and finished with a descent score. I use this technique to create my "All Fire", "All Arrow", "All Rockets", "All Water", etc final scene.

We'll use only "cannons" for land critters and "airs" for air critters. The desire placement for cannons are from the upper right corner to lower left corner on the map. Experiment your placements.

Round 1: 1 x canon (lvl1)

Round 2: upgrade canon to level2Round 3: Add a 2nd cannon

Round 4: Upgrade 1st canon to level3

Round 8: Sell all your cannons, add 2 airs (lvl2).

Round 9: Sell all your air towers and add 2 cannons (lvl3 & lv1)

Round 10: Upgrade the cannons to level 3Round 11 (Boss): Add 3 more level3 cannons (5 total). Sell down to 3 when the boss is close to dying.

Round 12 - Round 16: You can get by these rounds with 3 cannons (level3). On 16, try to sell all but one before round is over.Round 17: buy 4 air towers(lvl3) Try to sell all air towers before end of round

Monday, January 15, 2007

Well this blog article is a bit off topic, but it's a how-to. Last week, I found this game on digg.com. It's a flash game based Warcraft TD game inspired by Elemental TD for WarcraftIII. It got popular really fast. Because of its popularity, the game author(s) is updating the game almost daily. The game is quite addicting. Anyway, I decided to have some fun with the game. I wanted to build crazy last battle (Level 38). So far, I got all Fire Element Towers scene. I wanted to do screencast of all my final battles, but I haven't found a free screencast software I can use on my Mac, so I settle for screenshots. I'm planning to do "All Arrow Towers", "All Earth Towers", "All Cannon Towers". I'll update with more screenshots later.

Before we can do that, we need to build up a lot of money to afford to setup the last battle. So far, this is my strategy to save as much money as possible before the last battle. I usually can get to about 20,000 coins using the following strategy.

Rockets in my pocket (UPDATE: 1/18/2007)These guys (kids) didn't make past the lower right corner on Round 39.Ok, I'm using another coin accumulating strategy ("Interest" only upgrade to Round 28). There are 5 woods upgrade you can get in the game. To get rocket towers, you need one of each elements (fire, earth, water). So, do the first 2 upgrade as interest and the rest with the elements. Follow the mentioned guide up to round 21 and upgrade to fire. Use fire towers to get you to round 35. After round 35, I used the rocket towers exclusively. In round 22, use 2 fire towers (lvl4) and sell down to 1 on the boss 2nd pass.

Upgrade and now you can start building rockets, start with 2 upgraded towers

Play the game here

Build your money strategy (OLD: 1/11/2007)I'm pretty sure other folks have a better path, because I see crazy high scores of 60K+. The general path is get to level 7, buy Fire tower with wood and buy "Interest" with the rest. There are 3 boss levels, I usually ignore them. I try to kill them in 2 rounds.

Round 1: Build a Level 2 Arrow tower(AT).

Round 2: Upgrade Arrow to level 3. (note: Sometime the last monster escape, I wouldn't worry too much about it. You can buy back that life later)

Saturday, January 13, 2007

If you own a MacBook and things seem a little sluggish... well, a little more memory might be the answer. This DIY project will save you money and make a big performance impact on your MacBook (especially if you are running Windows XP in parallel like I am)

MacBook default specs are either 252k or 512k (depending on the model you have and when you bought it). I strongly suggest you upgrade your ram to 2gig. If you take your laptop to the Apple store, they will take you to the cleaners. Follow these simple steps below and get more out of your Mac laptop and do it for half the price.

What you'll need:

MacBook

Two 1gig compatible ram chips

Towel or soft surface

Mirco Phillips head and flat head screw driver

Mid sized coin

First lets talk about what kind of memory you need. When shopping for ram that will work in a MacBook, visit this site to confirm what type of memory you'll need: MacBook Memory

Now that you know what you need, you'll need to purchase TWO 1 gig strips. The MacBook performs best when you have an even amount of ram in each of the two memory slots. Shop around, but your best bet is NewEgg. Jump over to see what I purchased for my MacBook (black).

Now lets open the Laptop and remove the battery (write down or print out these steps).

Power down and unplug the power

Turn the MacBook over and place it on a soft surface

Using a coin, turn the battery lock clockwise to unlock and pop out the battery

With the battery out, you've exposed a bracket held in by three little screws. Using you Phillips head, unscrew the three screws.

Slowly remove the metal bracket to reveal the two memory slots (remove slowly so the screws remain in the bracket).

Now lets take the old memory out. Using your thumb, slowly push the white levers to the left. You may need to put some pressure on the levers because the memory is tightly housed. The chip should present itself and now you should be able to pull the memory out... While you do this, take notice on how the chip is housed. There is a notch about 1/3 from the left. You'll need to put the new chips in the same way.

After removing the old chips, evenly push the new ones in (lined up the same as the old ones). Push evenly, using your thumbs, until it's all the way in. A good amount of pressure is required, so don't fell like you are going to break something.

Place the bracket back in it's original place. Using a flat head screw driver, tuck in the fabric tab (that's on the bracket) into the space where the memory is housed. Screw in all three screws and take notice that the fabric tab remains in place. The bracket should be flat against the memory slots (like it was when removed)

Place the battery back in using a coin, lock the battery in place.

Turn on the computer and verify you system settings. Upper left, click on the apple. Then click on 'About this Mac'. A window should open showing 2gig next to Memory. You are now free to move about the cabin...

Friday, January 12, 2007

In my next DIY project, I'm going to cover how to get your purchased DVD's into your iTunes library with the best possible quality. You'll then be able to use FrontRow or your video iPod to enjoy quality content... While I document these steps, check out this new product below...

Looks like someone is going over the head of Apple, Inc. IF this this product does what they are advertising, then @TV has already been beaten... to the core...

In this article, I'll list all the tools, parts and material needed to build your own loudspeakers. Since this is a few years ago, the cost of material, parts and the stores I bought my items may have changed or may not be available.

Below is a list of online store I frequently visit for audio part supplies:

Friday, January 5, 2007

That's right... If you are one of the millions of people that got the Nike + iPod Nano Sport Kits as a gift this holiday season, you are probably now in the market for the Nike + shoes to go with it. Well, if you'd like to save 100 dollars and do a few simple steps, you can turn your favorite running shoes into Nike+ knock offs. Follow these simple DIY steps:

Step 1: Select shoe and peel up the foam insert (cushion) from inside the shoe. Just peel up 1/3 of the insert. This keeps the integrity of the shoe intact.

Step 2: Center the Nike+ transmitter in the shoe and trace it's outline with a pencil or pen.

Step 3: Use utility knife to cut away the fabric (some shoes may not have this layer, so just skip to step 4). Score the line you traced to a depth of 1 centimeter (enough to cut away the fabric). Note: you want the transmitter to be snug in the shoe so, don't cut away to much. You can always take away more material later.

Step 4: Using the Dremel tool, remove the material inside the oval you traced. Remember, don't remove more material then needed. You don't want the transmitter bumping around when you run. Take out just the material required to make it a sung fit.

Step 5: Check fit. Place transmitter in the shoe and replace the foam insert you removed or pealed up in step 1. Put the shoe on. If you can feel a bump in the area of the transmitter, you didn't place it deep enough. Go back to step 4 and go a little deeper.

Step 6: Start Running!

Nike would love to sell you new shoes, but just follow these simple steps and you'll save big. Plus, you can use any brand shoe you'd like. Don't fall for there marketing tricks and don't buy the cheap add ons you tie to your shoe laces (They flop around and don't transmit accurate).

This all started back in May, 2003 when I picked up a table saw from Lowes for $100 (Delta). I also picked up a Bosch router from Amazon. After a few minor home projects of building shelves, moldings with these tools. I decided to work on a more challenging project. My interest has always been in Audio/Home Theater. So, I decide to build a tower loudspeakers.

A few searches on Google led me to this site on building a ProAc 2.5 Clone. I had a chance to listen to the ProAc 2.5 in a retail store in Manhattan. It sounded great, very neutral loudspeakers, but they were retailed at $3000 for the pair. Based on the clone site, I can do it for under $700 at the time.

In the next few articles, I'll detailed my loudspeaker project. The steps I took to build these speakers (mistakes, pitfalls, improvements). I took me a few weekends to complete building the pair of speakers. I'm estimating costing me around $750 in parts and material to complete. I'm happy with the result giving I'm pretty much a novice woodworker. I definitely learn my lesson in applying wood veneer. I'll detail my mistakes and suggestions to apply veneer onto a speaker. Finally, the loudspeakers put out amazing sound. I was surprise how much Bass can be generated from a pair of 7-inch woofers.